Haunting
by RWBY Order
Summary: Yang valued simplicity in things. Thing was, that didn't always work. She would like to call Blake simply pretty, but that just didn't do her justice. At times like these when Blake was on all fours above Yang on their bed, staring down at her with that calm but oh-so-dangerous expression on her face, Yang knew that Blake's beauty was haunting, and no other word captured Blake.


Yang Xiao Long was no author. She didn't read much, either. True, she had a bit of a soft spot for old fairy tales and maybe a bit of romance, but Yang was not the type of person who could plop down in a chair and read a book for hours on end. She preferred more hands-on activities like fighting, working on machines, things of that nature. She was not a poet either, and could very easily become lost in the many aspects of poetry that made it complex.

Yang was not one for fancy words. She wasn't the type of girl who could summon forth a thousand synonyms for one word or pick which one had the correct connotations for a given situation. She liked to keep things simple. She had found that most of the time, the simple approach was the best approach. That said, Yang sometimes found herself wishing that she had a wider vocabulary.

She may be more of a gunsmith than a wordsmith, but Yang usually liked it that way. She did not often wish she was someone else. Yang knew what she was, and she used simple terms. Her hair was blonde, not golden, not honey, but blonde. Her eyes were purple, not lilac, and not lavender. She was strong. She was tall. Recently, she became an amputee. She didn't care if you called the ammunition she loaded into her gauntlets shells or bullets. She didn't care if you called the belts she kept them in a magazine or a clip (though don't tell Ruby she said that, though. Poor girl would probably have an aneurysm if you called one of _Crescent Rose's_ magazines a clip). Her jackets were brown, her shirts were usually yellow. She liked things simple. That was just who she was.

This extended to the people around her, too. Ruby was a redhead and a gun nut. She was naive and innocent and much better than this world deserved. She was selfless and smart. She was fast. She was _very_ fast. She was a leader. She was _their_ leader.

Weiss was...short. She was short, and she had white hair. Weiss Schnee was prissy and rude, even mean. _Weiss_ on the other hand was very smart. She was strong in her own way, and much, much kinder than she had any right to be. She was rude, but she was sweet at heart, and very protective of her teammates. And she was short.

Her uncle Qrow stank of liquor and blood on occasion. He was tall. He was strong. He was clever. Most importantly, though, he was _sad_. Always so sad, just below the surface.

Ren was calm. Nora was not.

Jaune was...Jaune.

Oscar was Ozpin.

Taiyang tried so hard to be a good father.

Summer was everything good in the world wrapped up in a bundle and taken far too soon. Summer was... _is_ mom.

Raven was the Spring Maiden. More importantly, Raven was a bitch.

This is how Yang thought. She was not, however, stupid by any stretch of the imagination. No, Yang was smart as a whip. Cunning in ways no one expected. She was susceptible to her own emotions, but other than that, Yang was smart. She didn't like things simple because she couldn't handle the complexity; it was just a matter of personal preference. She simply prefered to keep everyone in simple, easy categories that she could classify with simple adjectives.

Blonde. Purple. Red. Fast. Smart. Short. Mean. Kind. Sweet. Tall. Strong. Clever. Happy. Sad. Calm. Nora. _Jaune_. 'Fucked Up'. Father. Mother. Goodness. Spring Maiden. Bitch. Black and White. Simple.

But, like all rules, there was an outlier. An exception. This exception was named Blake Belladonna.

Sure, Yang could put her in simple categories and describe her with simple adjectives too, just like anyone else.

Pretty. Black hair. Cat ears. Yellow eyes. Pale skin. Thin body. Strong muscles. Strong mind. Strong heart. Smart. Clever. Fast. Gone. Run Away. Came back.

None of that would be wrong, but no matter how Yang looked at it, it still wasn't the _truth_.

None of those simple words meant enough. All of them described Blake, but none of them _meant_ Blake. And for a while, Yang could not for the life of her figure out why.

But now she knew.

It was because Blake was not pretty. No, that simply did not tell the truth. She walked along a blade's edge between attraction and danger. She was like the most pristine sword or the most intricately detailed gun. Beautiful and dangerous. No, Blake Belladonna was not just pretty. At times like these, in the dead of night, when Blake was on all fours above Yang on their bed, staring down at her with that calm but oh-so-dangerous expression on her face, Yang knew that Blake's beauty was _haunting_.

It was because Blake didn't have black hair. The strands were midnight, they were the darkest ebony that spilled over her shoulders like shadows themselves captured atop her head. They framed her face like they were living beings that knew just how to make their master look simultaneously like a kind, intelligent woman and like the razor's edge of a blade pressed against a throat.

It was because Blake didn't have cat ears. Those ears sat atop her head, once hidden beneath a bow as a mark of shame. They were fear of her past and fear of her future. Those ears were fear, but they were also so much more. They flicked when the wind blew by or when Yang ran her hands along them, and flattened against Blake's skull when there was danger coming either to Blake, someone Blake cared about, or to a character she had become particularly fond of in one of her stories. They were expressive, standing tall when Blake was proud or drooping when she was tired. They made her lash out as a child, made her do many things she'd come to regret. They lead her away from her family and towards a monster. They lead her then away, running once more. Then, they led her to Beacon, wrapped in a bow and hidden out of fear and out of shame. Then, that day out in the forest, those ears had heard another voice calling out for a lost sister. Then, _then_ , those ears led her to Yang.

It was because Blake didn't have yellow eyes. No, those two pools of molten gold held so much more. Hours worth of observation had told Yang that they were ever so slightly angular, and gave her face a predatory edge that so enticed Yang. They were deep in a way that went far beyond the physical. They were cool when Yang was angry,. They were comforting when Yang was upset. They cried when Blake let them. In the dead of night, in times like these, they called to Yang in a way that no words in any language developed by neither man nor faunus could describe. They were colored like amber, and seemed to glow ever brighter as the lights dimmed. They shined with an intelligence Yang could hardly fathom, and glowed with a strength born from years of hardship. Sometimes, they were cold, calculating. Sometimes they were warm as a hearth, understanding and soft. Sometimes, when they lie together, they begged for Yang to just _draw closer_ , even though they were already pressed as close as they could be without fusing into one.

It was because Blake didn't have pale skin. Her skin was like porcelain in how it glowed. Her skin was soft, smooth, and colored as if it had captured the very moonbeams that graced it at times like these, in the dead of night. It was smooth, except for where it wasn't. Her hands were rough, calloused from years of fighting. In their time they had clutched the hands of a mother and father. They had waved rough wooden signs crafted from scrap wood that would leave splinters in her hands. In time, they held a sword, and then a gun. Then, they heald _Gambol Shroud_. Eventually, they held Yang, too. Small scars also danced along her skin. Short stripes of pink that interrupted the smooth porcelain of her skin. Some would call them blemishes, but Yang knew the truth. Blake's scars were lessons, signs of a life lived and battles fought. Yang had become familiar with a great many of them. The stripe that sat on her left bicep was from when a train crashed during their mission to Mountain Glenn. There was a pucker on her right thigh where she took a bullet at the age of sixteen. There was a large, jagged one that pierced her abdomen where a monster much worse than any grimm had tried to take her life on that fateful night not even a year ago. Many danced around her body, many that Blake would call failures. Many that Blake was sometimes ashamed of. Yang knew the truth though. They were not signs that Blake had failed. No, if Blake had failed, she wouldn't be hovering over her, hauntingly beautiful in the moonlight. Those scars were not signs of failure and they never would be. Rather, they showed that Blake had faced hardships, that things had opposed her, tried to kill her. The fact that Blake wore these scars on skin that shifted with every breath and that burned with the heat of life meant that Blake had gone through hardships, that she had faced her opponents, and that she had _won_.

It was because Blake did not have a thin body, or strong muscles. Her beautiful skin that contrasted so perfectly with the dark of her hair and the gold of her eyes was pulled taught over a lithe body. It was hard and compact. Muscles that were small on her arms and in her legs reflected her personality. They were subtle, they could be easily hid and made to be unassuming. Like Blake, her body was quiet, easily looked over, and quickly faded into a crowd. However, also like Blake, if one were to look in the right place, and if Blake would let you get close enough, one could see what really hid under the facade. Yang knew Blake's secrets though, and she knew that those small muscles were wound tight as steel cabling and hard as stone when pressed against. They were meant for function, subtle, and deadly. Yang's were for show, built up in a gym. The muscles of a boxer, a weightlifter. Blake's were the arms and legs of a survivor. In times like these, when they were alone in the dead of night and Blake softly but firmly pressed Yang's hands into the bedding on either side of her head while looking so indifferent and yet so _hauntingly beautiful_ , Yang knew that Blake was a hidden gem, and she felt so, so happy that she was the one Blake had decided to show herself to.

It was because she didn't have a strong mind. No, the brain that powered Blake was so much more. It was the source of every sarcastic comment and clever quip Blake said. It fueled long, extended conversations late at night about everything from civil rights to character development. It was everything that Blake was and wanted to be, and it was just as beautiful for it.

It was because Blake didn't have a strong heart. Blake had faced evils the likes of which Yang never wanted to see. She had been hurt by hatred, both her own and that of others. Groundless hatred that existed simply for the sake of hurting. Worse yet, she had been hurt by love. Love of her cause blinded her to the violent nature of the White Fang, and love of another person blinded her to the monster he had become. That heart in her chest had been battered and bruised and torn apart and put back together and nothing on Remnant would blame her if she just hid from it all. Blake had every right to close up, build up walls around that precious place in her chest and never let anyone in. Except, she didn't. She opened up, she let Yang in. Even when she had been hurt so viciously before, she still let Yang in.

It was because Blake wasn't smart or clever. She was almost always firing on all cylinders, every word and every movement meant to accomplish some goal. Her vocabulary was much wider than Yang's, but she never flaunted it, and never acted as if she was better than her peers for being better read. No, like her body and like her very being, this too was purely function over form. Every action Blake made was purposeful, whether that action be to try to free a people, or to strike down a foe, or rally the people of Menagerie, or to pary one of Yang's jokes with one of her own, or to hold Yang close. Blake was absolutely brilliant, but Yang could only see that because Blake let her.

It was because Blake wasn't fast. She didn't move quickly around her opponents. She _danced_ around them. Be it by a foot or by an inch, Blake dodged every blow, slipping into an enemy's guard and parting their flesh with the blades of _Gambol Shroud_. She could leap into the air and over a target while a clone took the brunt of an attack, dancing across the battlefield while ribbons of woven cloth and blood whipped around her. It was always stunning how Blake could move in the blink of an eye, separating a Beowolf from its head before the beast had even registered her presence. Yang always found herself losing focus in the middle of the easier battles, devoting part of her precious energy to simply watch the spectacle that was Blake Belladonna at work.

It was because Blake wasn't gone. No, when her presence disappeared from Yang's, she wasn't gone. She was _missing_. She belonged there, by Yang's side. She deserved better than Yang, and Yang knew that, but she also knew that she wanted to be there for Blake regardless. When Blake was gone, there was a hole in the air where she used to be, a void of empty space beside the bed in her father's house that threatened to drag Yang in. There was something missing when Blake wasn't there, something that gave her phantom pains much more painful than anything her missing arm could create.

It was because Blake didn't run away. No, that simply did not capture the devastation the action had brought about. It had destroyed Yang. She had felt betrayed, she had felt inadequate, she had felt angry, and furious, and sad. She had just felt so very lost. Those months, laying in that bed, Yang had thought that was it. She had thought that was all she could take, that Blake running away would be what would finally break her. Everyone _always_ left. First Raven, then her mom, then Blake, then, in time, Ruby too. They all just _left_ her, and Yang didn't know why. What had she done? Was she not good enough? Was she just too broken for them, too weak? Yang didn't know, and these questions haunted her late into the night. Why, why did so many people that Yang cared about, that she _loved_ , just abandon her?! Blake, though, she hurt the worst, because she _knew_. Yang had confided in her. She had told her about her birth mother, how she was so scared of being abandoned again. Blake knew what running away would do, and she did it anyway. Eventually, Yang learned to act alone, learned how to move on without Blake. She learned how to fight with her prosthetic, and she learned how to lace up her boots and carry on. She learned how to keep moving forward. And she did, but not really. Even as that ship carried her to Mistral, even as _Bumblebee_ tore down those dirt roads and Yang's hair whipped in the wind, a part of her was still curled up in that bed. A part of her was still crying. A part of her was still missing the parts of her that were gone. An arm and a heart, both torn from her on that one fateful night. A part of her still missed Blake. She was angry, both at her partner for abandoning her and at herself for missing her. She knew, on those dirt roads, that she wouldn't open up again. She would hold Ruby tight to her until Ruby didn't want her anymore, and then she would be alone. She would just have to learn to be alone after that. She was not happy, nor was she content, but she was resigned to her fate. Except, things changed. Even when Yang feared the little family she had made in Ruby and Weiss would slip away, too, Blake did the one thing that no one else in Yang's life had ever done.

It was because Blake didn't come back. No, those two, simple words could not possibly encompass the weight and power of that one action. When no one else had, Blake came back. She remembered the moment vividly, colored by the blood and the fire of battle, Blake had appeared. The fighting lulled, and Yang saw her. Blake looked across a room packed full with her most beloved friends and her most vicious enemies, but those amber eyes that seemed to hold the sun and the hair that held the night and the skin that held the moon locked onto her and, in that instant, Yang knew that she was the only one in the room to Blake. She knew it, because in that instant Blake was the only person in the room to Yang. When her name fell from Blake's lips, Yang couldn't tell if she was angry, sad, or happy. Latter though, when the fighting had finally ceased and she fell to the floor, Blake did not run back to her faunus, or avoid Yang's gaze. Yang could see the fear in her as she approached her former team, fear of rejection, or resentment. Those fears were well founded, too, as Yang had resented her once, and would have rejected her out of spite for the devastation she had wrought. Over the many months they were apart Yang had thought of many things to say. Spiteful things, angry things, kind things, desperate things. She had begged for Blake to stay, she had told her to leave. She had sworn vengeance and pleaded for forgiveness. She had thought up novel long speeches and rants she could go to make sure Blake understood how badly she had betrayed Yang. Then, when the moment came, and someone finally, _finally_ asked Yang if Blake could stay, she could only find a single word. Then, when Blake joined her team, no, her _family_ there on the floor, Yang could've cried. Afterwards, when Blake approached Yang, and Yang held her in her arms once more, she did just that. She felt those lithe arms around her body again, and felt the warmth of her against her chest, and she cried. She cried for all the time she suffered apart from her partner. She cried because she had been hurt so many times by the ones she loved. She cried because suddenly none of it mattered. She cried because right then, as she nuzzled down into those midnight tresses and felt both of those fuzzy cat ears atop her head flick against her cheeks, it was like everything she had ever lost come back to her again. She cried, and Blake cried too. Blake had hurt her, she had destroyed her, but now, as that piece of her heart clicked right back into place, Yang didn't care. She didn't care that Raven left her in the crib. She didn't care that Summer left on a mission and never came back. She didn't care that Taiyang had left her all alone to care for Ruby. She didn't care that Ruby had left her for Mistral. She _didn't care_ that Blake had ran and left her alone in that bed on Patch. All she cared about then, all that mattered, was that Blake Belladonna _**came back.**_ So they cried, together again.

Blake Belladonna could not be described simply. Those simple adjectives Yang were content with using for everyone else just didn't fit Blake. Blake was different, because she was Blake. The reason why Blake Belladonna couldn't be lumped into those easy, simple categories was difficult to explain, but at times like these, in the dead of night, with Blake on all fours over her, gently but firmly pressing Yang's hands into the bedding on either side of her head, when the moonlight seemed to pool around her skin and shine in her amber eyes, when those midnight locks spilled down over them like a veil and she drew closer, when those eyes, calm but oh-so intense searched Yang's face for any sign of hesitation, when those lips gently met hers and Yang's eyes slipped closed, the answer was clear as the air on a summer's morning.

Blake Belladonna was _everything_ to Yang. She was the air she breathed and the fire that licked at her hair. She was the blood in her veins and the aura in her soul and the ground beneath her feet and the sky above her head. Blake could not be described simply _because Yang_ _ **loved**_ _her._

Maybe, just maybe, Blake was complex. Blake's mind and their relationship were far from simple, and neither was easily categorised. Yang liked things simple, but at times like these, when she couldn't help but cry a little as she reached up and cupped the back of Blake's head and drew her every closer, Yang found she simply didn't care.

Blake was Blake. She came back. Yang loved her.

And that was all Yang needed.

"I love you, Yang, more than I know how to say."

"You took the words right out of my mouth."

 **0000000000**

 **A/N**

 **So I was looking at some of Y8aY8a's (who is like the best content creator in the RWBY Community) art last night and I was struck by how she drew Yang and Blake's faces. She has a way of drawing them where you can so easily read their expressions, and I noticed how Yang looked in so many of her drawing. She looked so absolutely enraptured by Blake, and in her most recent comic (at the time of writing, anyway. The one about Blake "getting her spot ready") she drew a close up on Blake's face. It just hit me, the phrase "Hauntingly Beautiful". I went to sleep later on, only to wake up in a cold sweat at around one in the morning with the urge to just put the feeling her art brought out in me into words. So I did just that, and in almost a trance wrote up this.**

 **If you liked this story, go join up with my little cult over on Tumblr. I have around 1400 followers on iFunny, but I am making the switch to Tumblr for a variety of reasons. I reblog art I like (basically anything with any of the Team RWBY ships) and will make posts updating my followers on the status of my writing. The url is "rwby-order dot tumblr dot com". If you support team RWBY ships (I.E. Bumbleby, WhiteRose, Ladybug, Monochrome, Freezerburn, etc.), join up, or if you want to see how my writing is going.**

 **By the by, in case any of you care, the new Chapter of "The Broken Woman and The Wounded Reaper" is getting done, slowly but surely.**

 **And lots of love to Y8aY8a, she is a gift to the world with her art and her stories, so even if you don't decide to follow me on Tumblr, follow her.**


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